Hallelujah
by HappyBunny6678
Summary: "Both of them had been so alone before. So completely isolated and lost in their anguish and then all of a sudden, Stiles had seen that he'd never been alone. There had always been the sweet and sad sound of the violin to settle him and lull him to safety and sleep."


Meredith Stilinski – before she was 'Stilinski' - had been a world-famous concert pianist. She'd played in London, Prague, Japan, Paris and all over the continental U.S. To be honest, she thought that she would be doomed/destined (depending on the day) to wander the Earth for the remainder of her life pleasing people young and old with her expert timing, passion and technical skill at the ivory keys. Meredith found it to be a rewarding and amazing experience and she was truly happy with her name on billboards and posters and her CDs selling world-wide.

…Until she met John Stilinski in some dinky little town in upstate California because her bus had broken down on the way to a show in Washington.  
She was twenty-three and he was twenty-five and they were madly in love.

Meredith decided to quit her life of glamour and talent to settle down with John in a town called Beacon Hills. It only took them six months to decide to get married. With her parents less than pleased with her choice in men and location and his mother single and dementia ridden, they had no choice but to work for their wedding. Not that you would ever have heard them complain. Not for one single minute. They loved each other and that was more than enough motivation for each of them to get up, get out there and work until their fingers were bleeding if they had to.

John became a deputy with the Beacon Hills police force. It wasn't much, but it was something. It offered great benefits, decent pay and the chance to gain some experience in a field he'd never even touched before. (He really only got the job because the Sheriff had known his father back in the day.) With her skills as a musician, Meredith offered music lessons in both piano and voice, both at the schools in Beacon Hills and in their own home.

She really didn't have to, however. Neither of them had to work because Meredith made a sizable chunk of money between her tours and her merchandise sales. But one of the many beautiful and foolish things about young love is the desire to start fresh. So Meredith tucked her small fortune away in a locked fund for their children and took students without complaint on the beaten and worn used Everett upright piano that she'd bought from Mrs. Greenberg for fifty dollars and the promise of a signed CD.  
The ivory keys were chipped and broken in some places, there was no piano tuner to be had within two-hundred miles of them and one of the pedals was broken. But it didn't matter. They would make due. They had a house, they had each other and that was all they needed. Nothing else mattered.

Meredith and John Stilinski were married on June 3rd in their living room with the only reverend in town to officiate their ceremony. Their witnesses were Therese and Leonard Hale and Mrs. Greenberg. Their flower girl was Laura Hale and their ring-bearer was five-year old Derek Hale who could not have been more excited to have to balance two rings on a couch cushion in his life.

The ceremony was quiet. It was low key. It was inexpensive and not fancy and Meredith's dress was just a plain white sundress because they couldn't afford a wedding dress. But it didn't matter because John had Meredith and Meredith had John and no one else in the world existed for them when the good reverend pronounced them man and wife. Their honeymoon was a week off of work for John and a lesson-free week for Meredith.

A whole week to do nothing but bask in the other's company. Oh there was sex too but that's not really important. See, at the time of their wedding, Meredith was already three months pregnant with their first and only child.

It was only on the fourth day of their "honeymoon" that they even found out. All thanks to Meredith's sudden urge to have caramel covered pickles with ketchup on the side.  
Six months later, on November 27th, Stanislaus Leonard Stilinski was brought into the world, bright-eyed and blinking but not wailing. At first, nurses were worried he may have had developmental challenges in the womb because he didn't make a sound. Meredith assured them that his son was quiet so he could hear all the beautiful music the world had to offer.

The third person to hold the squirming bundle of babyflesh that was Stanislaus Stilinski was none other than Derek Hale, who could not have been happier to have what he considered to be a baby brother born on his sixth birthday. ('Mama, look! Dey gamme a brother for my birthday!' he had exclaimed upon seeing the blue-eyed boy.) Derek had placed a very gentle kiss upon the baby's squishy head and made a mental, child-like promise to always keep him safe, no matter what.

Derek began playing the violin that winter, his mother insisting that it would be good for him to have a musical education to balance out the rest of him. While he wasn't receiving his instruction from Meredith – rather from a cousin who'd studied at Berklee – he would still beg his mother every day, after each lesson, to let him go over to the Stilinski household to play for the baby. Every day, without fail, she would decline and he would cry and she would call Meredith to make sure it was alright and then they'd be off down the road, Derek with his violin tucked securely under his too-short arm.

Stanislaus never cried. In fact, every time he saw Derek, he smiled a big, gummy, baby smile. Derek would give Stanislaus his finger to hold when he was done playing Twinkle-Twinkle or whatever the lesson had been and he would lean over the crib and just talk to the tiny bundle about absolutely nothing and absolutely everything until Therese told Derek it was time to go.

This ritual continued for three years.

Stanislaus (John cringed at the name, even though he had agreed to let Meredith give the boy her father's name) learned how to talk – well, sort of – and then he never shut up. He even began to babble in his sleep (which was adorable but very irritating for the rest of the house) and nothing could make him stop. Derek just made him talk even more.  
Meredith even started trying to teach him how to play piano. For a nearly three year-old, he wasn't too terrible in her professional opinion. Then again, he was her son after all. What wasn't there to like, really? She was sure he would be a child prodigy like she had been and there would be nothing to it, really. In fact, she'd gotten him a tiny, My-First-Piano from Toy's R Us for his birthday.

They were happy. She was happy.

But on November 27th, on Stanislaus's third and Derek's ninth birthday, things changed. The two families had always celebrated together, alternating homes. But this year, several things had gone wrong. For one, Therese and Leonard said that Derek had caught a terrible fever and they didn't want him to leave the house and potentially pass his illness onto Stanislaus. At least not for that night.

It was probably for the best that they hadn't met up for the evening because that night Meredith collapsed. That was the first time Stanislaus cried.  
John came home from work that night to find his three year-old son on the floor next to Meredith, his toys long forgotten, shaking her and crying for his mama. John didn't know what worried him more – his wife collapsing or his son crying for the first time in the history of his existence.

When she woke up in the Beacon Hills emergency room, her husband at her side and their son tucked up under her arm, she laughed. Meredith told John it was just a dizzy spell. She'd stood up from the floor too fast and subsequently passed out. They went home that night and nothing more was heard of it.  
But John couldn't help the gnawing feeling in his gut, telling him that something was horribly wrong.

Over the course of the next few months, Meredith showed subtle signs of deteriorating. She became tired and fatigued easily, had bruises wherever something touched her for the most part and found her paper cuts bleeding longer and longer every time the corner of her index finger caught on the pages as she flipped sheet music for her students or her son.

Meredith never complained, however. She had her husband, her son and her music and that was all she would ever need. Anything else could wait. They saw Therese and Leonard and Derek and Laura less and less as time wore on. Honestly, Meredith thought little of it. She didn't have much time to think about it. But she noticed Stanislaus growing fidgety and impatient, like he was looking for something and couldn't find it. His eyes turned a velvety brown – just like her father's eyes. Stanislaus would get frustrated easily and they would lie down and nap together.

John finally made her see the doctor when the nosebleeds started.

By that time, Meredith had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia for seven months.

She began chemotherapy. Stanislaus began taking piano lessons in earnest and he was every bit as talented as she'd hoped he'd be.

Stanislaus turned four without a party, without any fanfare other than his mother's cheesy party hat and music stand for a gift. He turned four without Derek.  
John was voted into the Sheriff's office and worked longer hours.

Meredith began losing her beautiful golden hair in thick, ugly clumps. Stanislaus gave his mommy a kiss on the forehead every day, when it looked like she was going to cry, and told her she was beautiful. Then he'd continue his four year-old babble right through Mozart or Tchaikovsky or Beethoven – which he played flawlessly, just like his mother – and their days passed without mention.

Stanislaus turned five with his father at work, his mother asleep in bed and without Derek. The second time Stanislaus cried was on his fifth birthday when he began to realize what loneliness truly was.

He started kindergarten on the wrong foot entirely. Stanislaus talked too much for these kids, moved too much for these ones and was too weird for these ones. (Look, just because he insisted on wearing his Batman cape on his first day of school doesn't mean that he's weird. He's cool.)

Most of the time, he played by himself – at school, at home, everywhere. In music class, he would fall asleep because he could already play a Sonata and the teacher had them singing Row Your Boat over and over again. When his music teacher realized that the position he was now poorly filling had once been Stanislaus's mother's – before she got sick – he made Stanislaus show off. Of course that earned him no friends.

Then Scott McCall transferred to Beacon Hills with his mom. He wasn't too bright and he wasn't musical at all but he was nice and he liked Stanislaus. Suddenly, he had a friend.  
Stanislaus turned six without mention. He hadn't even told Scott it was his birthday. Who was Derek?

Meredith slowly sunk into decline. She would still teach Stanislaus when she could but she no longer gave private lessons. She no longer taught at the school. She spent most of her days in bed or on the couch, a scarf wrapped around her head and sweaters piled on top of her no matter what the season was. Every day, like clockwork, Stanislaus would press a kiss to her forehead and tell her she was the most beautiful mommy he'd ever seen. Every day, she would smile and then cry a little and he'd pretend he didn't notice.  
Scott never came over his house. He wasn't ashamed or anything because he didn't really understand why he would need to be anyways. But he knew his mommy was sick and that no one should come over when she's sick because it makes her cry. So no one came over, Stanislaus saw Scott at school and only school, and then he spent his afternoons with his mommy until his daddy came home from work. Most days, his mommy would ask him to play the piano for her. He never complained and always played "Hallelujah", which was her favorite even though he could play stuff a bajillion times harder than that. But Meredith always got this ghost of a smile whenever she heard it so Stanislaus would play it until his fingers fell off if he had to.

The same thing happened for his seventh birthday as in the previous years, only that time his daddy came home drunk. Stanislaus cried for the third time because his daddy hit him even though he knew he didn't mean it and his daddy spent all of the next day apologizing. Birthdays were no longer something he thought to take notice of.

In the first grade, he saw Lydia Martin for the first time and she's pretty. But she was a girl and he just wanted to be friends with her anyways. He was instantly snubbed because he had cooties even though he got his shots and he smelled like nasty boy germs.

Stanislaus didn't have a crush and he didn't have a new friend but he did hear wolves howl that night and for some reason, they made him feel a little bit better.

Stanislaus went over Scott's house for the first time that year. They played video games and watched TV and ate cookies and Scott's mom seemed interested in how much he talked and moved around so he kept talking and fidgeting. He kept being Stanislaus because Scott's house felt like the only place he really could be. When he got home, his mommy smiled and asked if he had fun. His daddy told him the school called with a look that made Stanislaus feel like he'd done something awful.

His fourth round of tears was shed because his father had been disappointed in him for the first time.

Later, he found out that he had done nothing wrong. They just wanted him to talk to some people and answer some questions and it'd all be alright. So for about a week, he had to talk to a bunch of different people about different things and talk to them and play with colored blocks and remember stories and it was fun but it was boring.

At seven, Stanislaus was diagnosed with severed Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and put on Adderall to help him calm down and focus. Meredith just smiled at him and stroked his hair, telling him there was nothing wrong with him and that he just needed a little extra help sometimes like she did. John wiped a hand down his face, gave him the look and went to the pharmacy.

Meredith stopped treatment just before Stanislaus's eighth birthday. The medications were getting too expensive and too extensive. Those coupled with John's anti-depressants and Stanislaus's Adderall… It was more than they could ever hope to afford on top of medical bills and therapy.

John began working longer hours to avoid the inevitability they would all have to face sometime.

Stanislaus started faking sick to stay home with his mom.

Meredith began screaming at night when the pain became too much for her handle without the medications they could no longer afford.

Still, every day, Stanislaus would kiss her and tell her she was beautiful, no matter how long he stayed up crying and rocking himself back and forth, praying for something to save his mom. He always smiled for her, always played the piano and never gave her any attitude about anything.

Meredith was hospitalized for two weeks before she died the May after her son's unremarkable eighth birthday. Stanislaus spent every waking second he could by her bedside, bringing her CDs of her concerts and telling her about school and Scott and of course, to give her the kiss and compliment. John stopped by when he could and held her hand tightly, never wanting to let go of her. The Hales never came.

When she finally passed, John was at work. Stanislaus was holding her hand and biting his lip and smoothing back the light dusting of new hair on her head. She told him she loved him very much and that she'd never been happier to have a family like theirs. She told him to keep playing the piano, to take care of his father and to tell him that she loved him. Meredith Stilinski's golden eyes slipped shut and with a smile on her face, she released her final breath. Stanislaus stood, leaned over, kissed her on the forehead, told her she would always be beautiful and went to wait outside her room for his father.

At eight years old, Stanislaus decided several things. One, he was to be called Stiles from then on because his mom had named him and he knew his dad wouldn't want to be reminded like that. Two, he would stop playing the piano, despite his mother's wishes. He couldn't do it. Three, life would never be fair.

The funeral was small and quiet, just the Stilinskis and Mrs. Greenberg in attendance. Stiles knew that someone else should be there but he didn't know whom, couldn't put his finger on it.

When he and his father got home that night, John went straight to bed. He didn't say a word to Stiles about his mother or her illness or what was going to happen without her. Stiles sat at the kitchen table and stared at his hands, shaking under the effects of his Adderall. When he finally went to bed, he didn't sleep, choosing to stare at the ceiling until his alarm for school went off.

Stiles went to school as if nothing had happened. He was fine. No one knew – could tell the difference. Not even Scott. At eight years old, Stiles learned how to act… Meaning he learned how to lie.

Without being asked or told, Stiles began to pick up where his mother left off. When he got home from school, he'd clean everything up and dust and pull a chair over to the sink and clumsily do the dishes. The only trouble he ran into was cooking. His dad was working so hard and was tired all the time so he shouldn't have to cook, right? That's what Stiles was thinking when he woke up one morning and decided to make his dad breakfast. The hash browns were raw, he burned his hand when he slipped and fell of the chair and hit the stove and the eggs were rubber. But that didn't matter anyways because John Stilinski left for work early that morning, so the breakfast went uneaten anyway. His hand hurt a lot worse than a skinned knee and he knew he couldn't go to school with his hand like that… So instead he walked to Scott's house and asked Scott's mom with tears in his eyes to please fix his hand so he could go to school.

Melissa McCall wasn't happy. Stiles was young and small and altogether too… Much. Scott had told her that his mother just died and with the burned hand she was inclined to believe that John wasn't handling things well. She was right. But it wasn't her place to say anything, no matter how much she may have wanted to.

That night, John gave Stiles the look, yelled at him, ordered pizza and sent him to bed.

Stiles continued going to school. He got good grades, hung out with Scott and tried to impress Lydia.

But at night, when he was home alone, the panic set in. What would they do without his mother? Did his dad not love him now that she wasn't there anymore? Was it all his fault? His chest felt constricted and tight, like something was pressing down hard on it while one of his arms went some kind of numb as he lost his ability to take in a sufficient breath. Stiles' anxiety rose and rose and rose, usually until he passed out or managed to calm himself down. He told no one about the panic attacks. At least, not until he had one in the kitchen, trying to make his dad dinner.

The bowl had crashed to the floor and John came running, asking what was wrong and what happened but Stiles couldn't hear him. All he could hear was his mind telling him 'she's dead and gone and now it's just you' and 'you did this'. Before he knew it, he was in the hospital, John clenching his hand hard enough to grind the bones together. He looked completely terrified.

A doctor came in, asked what exactly had happened, then told Stiles that he had a panic attack. That usually they aren't just the one. The doctor taught his father how to talk him out of one and gave them a prescription for some sort of medication that was supposed to help keep his attacks at bay. Stiles vowed to never fill it. The last thing they needed was more medication in the house – they still hadn't dumped Meredith's old medications.

Stiles turned nine with a quiet 'happy birthday' from his father. He had forgotten it was his birthday.

That year, he learned how to cook for his dad. It wasn't much and he was still short but he could do it. He learned how to do laundry and how to vacuum and how to do his homework while he cleaned. Stiles got straight A's and stayed on his Adderall. Things that year passed pretty uneventfully save for the one year anniversary of Meredith's death.

John drank. They went to her grave and left flowers and cleaned up the overgrowth. Stiles stood there, trying to wrap his head around the fact that his mother's body was underneath his feet. John stood there, praying for his wife back, saying he couldn't do all of this alone and that they needed her. None of it was aloud and neither of them mentioned the yellow rose waiting on her grave when they arrived. Must have been the groundskeeper, John thought.

John hugged his son for the first time since his wife died on that day and promised his wife that he would be a better father to their son.

It was a slow road filled with behavioral issues and misunderstandings and puberty talks and altogether mortifying Barbie doll sex demonstrations. But they were getting there and that's what mattered. All in all, it wasn't a bad year. And sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could hear someone playing Hallelujah on the violin in the forest – Or at least, he thought he could.

Stiles turned ten with Scott and Melissa McCall, a tiny cake for the four of them to share and a brand new video game from his father. That was the first time his dad told him he was proud of him and that he was sorry. Stiles… Stiles almost cried. But he didn't because Scott was there and he didn't want to seem like a sissy.

Lydia Martin continued to pretend he didn't exist, which was fine really because he was used to it but he still said hello to her every day. Just in case it made her day a little brighter. Lydia was smart, she was talented, and she got this little smile on her face whenever she looked at the class's pet rabbit but she always looked around to make sure no one important saw her afterwards. Stiles did, though. He always did. Lydia reminded him of his mom sometimes, when she smiled.

Two months after his birthday - on a day in January when Stiles came down with a cold bad enough to keep him from school for a few days and was sitting in his father's office snuggled up on the couch - news came in of a fire.

A fire that had killed eleven people, seven of which were children.

His father rushed out of the office, leaving ten year-old Stiles to sit alone in his office with his books and a Gameboy. He was perched precariously on the edge of the couch when two teenagers burst into his father's office, scaring him off the couch and onto the floor. While his heart thumped loudly in his ears, the girl whipped her head around in every direction possible, looking for someone.

The boy was staring right at Stiles.

As it happened, they were looking for his father who had since gone out to the woods to help with the fire. But of course, they could wait here if they wanted. While they waited, Stiles kept them company. He talked about his Gameboy and his books and Scott and school and the girl just looked sort of angry – which was fine because Stiles knew he could be annoying to most people and they were the last remaining Hales so of course she would be upset – but the boy never took his eyes off of Stiles' face. He let him ramble on and on about things no one would ever care about and he seemed interested.

But he seemed about to cry, as well.

So, at a natural stopping point in Stiles' nasally congested story, Stiles reached over and wrapped his arms around the older boy whose name he still didn't know. The boy stiffened in his arms and felt like he was about to explode but Stiles just held on tight and mumbled how sorry he was. Then he let the boy loose, wiped his nose on his sleeve and went to greet his tired looking and soot covered father. Stiles didn't notice that neither one of the Hales had taken their eyes off of him since the hug.

He did, however, notice the boy leaning down near his ear and threatening his life if he ever told anyone that Stiles was allowed to hug him. Stiles went pale, blamed it on the fever and went back to lie down on the couch, feeling for some reason like someone had ripped his heart from his chest.

The next few years passed quickly, with Stiles beginning to notice boobs – specifically Lydia Martin's boobs – and the finer points of the male anatomy. Despite what he told his father, he wasn't noticing Lydia's boobs in the romantic sense. He was noticing them in the 'oh look at those' sense, which he told Scott. Scott said there was something wrong with him because he DEFINITELY though Lydia Martin's boobs were 'hot' – whatever that meant.

So he asked his dad who pinched the bridge of his nose, told Stiles he wasn't gay and went off to work… Which led to a fourteen year-old Stiles googling 'gay' on the brand new desktop computer in his room. Yeah… He was definitely at least partially gay, if the box worth of his tissues in the garbage can after that search was anything to go by.

But in his search, he also found out that telling people was usually not a good idea. Stiles kept his newfound identity to himself and told everyone he was in love with Lydia Martin. (Even though he knew Danny Mahealani was gay, he didn't want to take any chances because Danny was popular and Stiles was Stiles.)

He hadn't touched his mother's piano in six years at that point.

Stiles had no plans to do so, either.

After his sixteenth birthday, everything changed.

Long and heart-attacking inducing story short, Scott got bitten by a werewolf and Derek Hale was back in town, looking altogether miserable about being there.

Stiles remembered the story of his house burning down to the ground with his family in it and he remembered Derek being a few years ahead of he and Scott in school but there was something more familiar about Derek than he could put his finger on.

Then again, that feeling could have been extreme unease at the way Derek would practically bore a hole through Stiles every time they were in the same room together. Or within a hundred feet of one another. Frankly, it was sort of creeping Stiles out. A lot. But not nearly as much as Scott said it should have been.

The year passed with too much excitement for Stiles. He had to lie to his father more than he ever wanted to in his entire lifetime, lived his life in constant fear of death and had a panic attack almost nightly. He had watched Lydia – who he was not in love with but instead admired as a human being – nearly die at the hands of a vicious werewolf and then slowly come apart at the seams. Stiles watched Scott, his supposed best friend, slip away from him slowly because of some girl. Stiles watched his father try to eat and drink himself into oblivion, with not a single thought for Stiles and all the efforts he made to make sure they ate healthy. He saved Derek's life time and time again and was met with only more animosity each time.

Every night, when Stiles was in the throes of his now expected panic attacks, he'd hear a familiar tune drift through his window, played on the violin. The notes to 'Hallelujah' would waft through the gaps and faulty seals in his window panes over and over again until he could breathe again, wherein he would cry himself to sleep. It was a trade-off and some would say it was for the better. But Stiles still hadn't touched his mother's old piano and his father still hadn't gotten rid of it, so Stiles would argue that being haunted by werewolves was a far better option than being haunted by the memories of his mother's long and torturing illness.

Then, to cap off his already sufficiently awful year thus far, he was captured by Gerard Argent and had the shit kicked out of him repeatedly. For two hours.

Not a single soul save his father had even noticed he was gone.

Scott never called.

Just like that, Stiles was back to being the same invisible, friendless kid he'd been in kindergarten.

That night, when he returned from Gerard's basement, his face and body bruised and bloodied with his father getting downright murderous to protect him, Stiles realized he couldn't get rid of the scene from Lydia's party – the one caused by the hallucinogenic punch.

How, exactly, had he killed his mother?

When he asked his father the question aloud, his father had done a double take. Why would his son have any reason to believe he'd killed his mother? Unless… No, those records had long since been locked up and John Stilinski wouldn't let them out into the open. They were sealed for a reason. (Because John secretly believed that his son had been the reason his wife had died, perhaps.) So, confident that his son had no idea about the trust fund with almost fifty thousand dollars in it with Stiles' name on it, John grabbed Stiles' shoulders and shook him, telling him never to think that ever again. It was the cancer that had killed his mother, not Stiles.

That night, Hallelujah played through the window again as Stiles hacked into his family's financial records with the niggling feeling that he had to do it.

Illegal, yes, but he had to find out what had happened and why his mother – his beautiful, perfect, wonderful mother – had stopped treatment.

Stiles noticed several things right off the bat:

1.) She'd stopped treatment just after Stiles had been diagnosed.  
2.) It looked like his family could only just afford his pills or her treatment, which meant they picked one over the other.  
3.) There was a trust fund that Stiles couldn't access until he was 18 that had forty-nine thousand, seven-hundred eighty-two dollars and sixty cents in it.

Stiles blinked at the screen for a long moment. They had more than enough money to pay for her treatment… But they couldn't access it because they had given it all to him.

All at once he stopped feeling and began feeling everything. Pain crashed down on him in waves, beating his shoulders to hunch over his cramping middle. It felt like a panic attack a thousand fold. Why? Why hadn't they just dropped his stupid fucking medication and treated his dying mother? Was that why his father blamed him? Because it was his fault. That explained the way his father treated Stiles after his mother's death… That would explain everything. Stiles cost them money. Stiles would always cost them money.  
But worse than that, he cost them his mother's life.

And that was something he could never forgive himself for.

In a whirlwind of anger and misery and hurt (oh God so much hurt painpainpain), Stiles destroyed his room. He smacked himself up against his closet doors, breaking them down. His clothes (bought with money that could have saved her, dammit!) were torn to the floor and ripped to shreds. His aching (and in some places very broken) body protested but all he could feel was emotional pain. The physical meant nothing to him. Not even when his father came in and wrapped his arms tight around his son in an effort to calm him down.

Instead of calming him, it just made Stiles worse. He tore himself from his father's grip, shouting and yelling things at him. Calling him a hypocrite because he had been lying to Stiles his whole life and he really did blame Stiles for Meredith's death, leaving John no right to fault his son for lying to John to protect him. Calling him stupid for not just cutting Stiles' pills out of the budget.

All the while, John sat there with his mouth slack and refusing to work. His mouth refused to tell his son (God, his only son) that it wasn't his fault because his mother had made the decision and that Stiles should never blame himself and that he was sorry, so sorry because he'd been lying to Stiles and he'd been angry with Stiles and what was he being protected from?

John watched as Stiles got up and ran. Ran away from John, away from the house and into the woods.

His son – who could have had serious injuries – was running through the woods in the dark. Away from John.

John found out firsthand what a panic attack felt like.

While Stiles? Stiles found out what it felt like to really go home when he stumbled into the burnt out shell that used to be the Hale house. He found out that he would regret the harsh words he'd given his father as a barbed parting gift.

Stiles found out that the Hales had had a grand piano and that it was still mostly intact.

Stiles found out that he never wanted to play anything as bad as he wanted to play that piano. So without any regard for Derek – the man he originally came to see because he had known about what his parents had done (he had to, he was there, Stiles remembered now) – he began to play. The first C chord came out strong and sure, as if he'd never stopped playing.

'Hallelujah' rang throughout the empty, desolate house, Stiles' voice ringing out shakily through his pain and the silence of death and fire. Somewhere, deep down, he knew Derek was there, listening. And somewhere, even deeper, he realized he was singing to Derek, a plea for help and comfort and to be loved in all his broken and shameful glory because only Derek would understand what it was like to know you were responsible for the death of a family.

"_I've heard there was a secret chord,  
That David played and it pleased the lord  
But you don't really care for music, do you?"  
Stiles didn't think he had much of a voice. It never sounded anything like the dulcet tones his mother had used to sing him softly to sleep. But his mother had always said he had a soulful voice. One that made you want to weep when he wept or smile when he smiled.  
"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth,  
The minor fall, the major lift.  
The baffled king composing  
Hallelujah…  
Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.  
Hallelujah.  
Hallelujah._"

Stiles didn't hear the floor creak but he knew he had an audience now. He knew that his pleas had been answered and that for once, someone was there to listen to him at the very least. The next verse was sung with so much pain and hope that it made something deep inside Stiles ache more than he had ever known he could, because he desperately wanted the next verse to heal Derek – to make him smile.

"_Your faith was strong but you needed proof,  
You saw her bathing on the roof,  
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you.  
She tied you to a kitchen chair,  
She broke your throne,  
And she cut your hair and from your lips  
She drew the hallelujah.  
Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.  
Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah._"

Stiles didn't take a break, knowing that as much as he desperately wanted to turn around and cling to Derek, throbbing bruises being soothed by his unimaginably warm skin, he had to finish the song. And when, for the next verse, a violin joined in and Derek walked into the periphery of his vision, Stiles knew he was right. Derek needed him to finish the song as much as Stiles needed to finish the song.

"_Baby I've been here before,  
I know this room, I've walked this floor,  
I used to live alone before I knew you.  
I've seen your flag on the marble arch,  
But love is not a victory march!  
It's a cold and it's a broken, hallelujah.  
Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah.  
Hallelujah,  
Hallelujah._"

Both of them had been so alone before. So completely isolated and lost in their anguish and then all of a sudden, Stiles had seen that he'd never been alone. There had always been the sweet and sad sound of the violin to settle him and lull him to safety and sleep.

Derek had seen that he would never be alone again.

Stiles couldn't continue playing and Derek didn't want to. So when Stiles broke off with a choked sob, Derek carefully set his violin – the same one he'd had when he'd begun to learn how to play – on top of the piano and pulled Stiles into his chest.

Neither one of them would admit that night had happened.

Neither one of them ever wanted to admit weakness.

But Derek was there when Stiles went back to his house to apologize to his father and to get him sober again.

Stiles was there when Derek visited his families graves. (He was also there when Derek placed that single yellow rose on his mother's final resting place, making Stiles wrap his arms around him and hug him tight.)

Derek was there when Stiles was so sore from all the bruises and fractures and emotional… Blah that he couldn't get out of bed.

Stiles was there when Derek told him they'd been destined to be mated since Stiles had been born and Stiles wasn't surprised in the least.

Neither one of them had ever been alone, even when one had gone off to grieve and the other could never quite bring himself to leave in the first place.

No matter what life could throw at the two of them, they would never be alone again, even when all they had was Stiles' piano, Derek's violin and a trust fund from a mother who knew the whole story before it could even begin.


End file.
